1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of computer advertising displays such as found in a subway or in an electronic newspaper and more particularly to stand alone and networked advertising displays.
2. Description of Related Art
Newspapers are well known in the art. The individual ads run by advertisers, however, are static and usually permit only one product of a complete product line to be featured. They also limit the buyer because the buyer cannot get additional information about a product when the buyer so desires.
Stand alone advertising displays, such as advertising panels found in subways or the corridors of busy buildings are also known. Theses are subject to the same drawbacks indicated with respect to newspaper advertising.
Object oriented programming is a known form of software development that models the real world with representation of objects or modules that contain data as well as instructions that work upon that data. Objects are the basic building blocks of an object oriented program. Objects are software entities. They may model something physical like a person or they may model something virtual like checking account. Normally an object has one or more attributes (fields) that collectively define the state of the object; behavior defined by a set of methods (procedures) that can modify those attributes; and an identity that distinguishes it from other objects. Encapsulation refers to the hiding of most of the details of the object. This permits the object to be treated in a single entity. However, the set of operations associated with the object are explicit and constitute a well defined interface. One object requests another object to perform one or more operations through messaging. An object is sometimes referred to as an instance of an abstract data type or class. The programmer may define a class of objects by describing the attributes and procedures common to the class. By defining the class only once, a plurality of instances can be created by associating the class attributes and procedures with each instance and allowing the instances to differ only in their identity or in a particular value associated with the range of values permitted for the class.
Object oriented programming also permits creation of subclasses, in which class attributes and procedures can be inherited from the class by subordinate subclasses, and creation of super classes in which only the common attributes and procedures of a group of instances of various classes are retained as the defining characteristics.
The present invention provides methods, apparatus, systems and computer program products which overcome the limitations of prior art advertising display media. In particular, the invention permits a displayed ad to change to feature other products, adapting to user interest. In one form, a touch screen advertising display includes a displayed ad object, the contents of which can be changed by the user dragging and dropping a descripter of a different product onto a image space of the ad object to indicate that a search is to be undertaken. A search typically encompasses an entire catalog of the advertisers products, and the search can be utilized to bring out particular related products or to see if a text input, from another ad object or from another text object is contained within the catalog.
Such ad objects are utilized as part of an electronic newspaper and each has the same capabilities as a stand alone ad object. However, searches can occur simultaneously in a plurality of data bases for different manufacturers, all initiated by dragging and dropping text from a text source onto an image window of the ad object.
The invention relates to apparatus for displaying advertising, including a touchscreen display for displaying advertising, a memory for storing advertising, and a computer configured to display advertising and to change the advertising displayed when a user touches the touchscreen display. Advertising is stored in memory as advertising objects. Advertising objects include a logo, an image, an image description, a list of related products and a list of catalog categories. Control icons can be displayed as part of an object.
The invention also relates to a method of displaying advertising information by displaying an image and related product information, selecting a related product from the related product information, and providing an element for performing the step of replacing the image with an image of a selected related product.
The invention is also directed to a method of displaying advertising information by displaying an image and catalog information, selecting a product category from the catalog information, displaying a list of products for the product category, selecting a product from the list of products, and replacing the image with an image of a product selected from the list of products.
The invention is also directed to a method displaying information on a display, by displaying a logo, displaying an image in an image portion of the display, displaying textual information in a text portion of the display, dragging selected information from the text portion onto the image portion of the display and initiating an information retrieval search in response thereto, and displaying an image and text information related to the image resulting from the information retrieval search.
The invention also relates to a method of displaying information comprising one or more ad objects, each ad object comprising a logo, an image, and text, by assembling a plurality of the ad objects into a page of an electronic newspaper for simultaneous display to a user. Text from an ad object can be dragged onto a search object to initiate an information retrieval search for information related to the selected text. The search can occur locally or over a network, such as the world wide web. Results of the information retrieval search are displayed in a window. Text included in the results of the information retrieval search can be selected and dragged and dropped onto an image displayed as part of an ad object to initiate a search of information available to the ad object. It can also be dropped onto plural ad objects for simultaneous processing.
The invention is also directed to a system for retrieving and displaying information including a network, a plurality of computers connected to the network, each containing information accessible over the network, and a computer displaying one or more ad objects having an image area on a display, connected to the network, and configured to retrieve information accessible over the network when text related to the information is dragged and dropped from an ad object onto a search object area on the display.
The invention is also directed to computer program products for carrying out the techniques of the invention on a computer.
Still other objects and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, wherein only the preferred embodiment of the invention is shown and described, simply by way of illustration of the best mode contemplated of carrying out the invention. As will be realized, the invention is capable of other and different embodiments, and its several details are capable of modifications in various obvious respects, all without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawing and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature, and not as restrictive.